Post The First…

I am overjoyed, proud, edified, uplifted… just all sorts of happy, to be able to present the first entry in our new blog entitled “Running Dog.” At this point, I feel it important to acknowledge and emphasize the “our,” as we are an immense, dedicated family of endurance athletes looking to better our lives, connect to the very best of what makes us human, and, perhaps most important, to share it with others.

We all have much to impart by way of experience: failure, blinding success, excruciating agony, the will to overcome… and I believe that by sharing all of it, whether it’s stories about running, how you got through the day, a great new recipe, overcoming pain and loss, how you felt an encompassing pride in your accomplishments, all of what defines us, that we can grow closer as a community. Along my relatively short journey as a runner, in my interactions, I have met folks who have been of enormous service; crazy people full of love and passion, and you should know that it is within all of this mayhem and insanity that I have rediscovered a deep appreciation for humanity. It touches me in a deep and profound way.

Some basic housekeeping: While we want to encourage a free and open discourse, and provide a forum for a wide variety of expression, there are, as you might imagine, a few suggested guidelines that you will no doubt acknowledge are necessary in creating a healthy, nurturing environment.

While happy to discuss my politics (nominal) and religious beliefs (reasonable) with you on a one-to-one basis, it’s best we keep those thoughts separate from this space. This is not to say that we cannot offer our ideas on the spiritual; in fact, the idea is to raise our individual and collective consciousness, and provide a place where we can express ourselves, and hopefully leave a little lighter than when we came.

While we all have people who present us with interpersonal challenges (a nice way of saying we hate their guts), expressions of those type won’t be given voice in the body of this blog, for obvious reasons.

In general, and when creating content, it may be best to ask yourself, ”Is there anything contained in here that would hurt, negatively effect, or monumentally piss off any of the constituency?” If so, well, we have editors at the ready, but it may also be good for you to reconsider the content of your post.

I’ve constructed this blog to accept a variety of content, and I would hope you would feel inspired to include and video, images, podcasts, bits of music, and of course, links, that will help you best express who you are to the community. Share it with your othercommunities. Don’t be afraid to be amazing!

So here we go. Speaking strictly for myself, I’ve spent a lifetime looking for meaning, and have come to appreciate the small moments of beauty that occasionally arise from the morass of the day-to-day. Perhaps by its expression, I can create a sense of identification with a fellow member of the tribe, and thus encourage you to contribute your own thoughts, or at the very least remind you that while we tread a frequently lonely path, we are all connected through our absolute perfect natures and our passions.

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The Dashing Whippets Running Team is a New York based running team that is founded on, and driven by, the diversity of our team members. With team members from all over the city, the country and the world, and with greatly different running goals, we find unity in recognizing and appreciating each others differences and our mutual enjoyment of running and participating in the New York running community and beyond.